Synopsis

Nine regular humans from different parts of the world are abducted and transformed into cyborgs with astounding powers for the purpose of being used as weapons. The nine cyborgs rebel and start to fight against their creators in the name of justice and world peace. Decades later, the nine cyborgs seem to be untouched by time, but they live in a world where "justice" has as many nuances as the number of people living on the planet. What is their place in the world now?

"In the beginning was the Voice, and the word was Him; and all obeyed His word in great awe. But those who dwelt upon the land, through vanity, cunning and greed, attempted to build a multitude of towers whose tops reached unto heaven, and accumulated great wealth on earth. Scattering across the land and laying it to waste, man turned a deaf ear to His Voice. So He gave unto man an opportunity to atone for his misdeeds; and flame and smoke and the roar of a lion descended upon earth; and shattered the many towers to dust...."

As a large fan of the Cyborg 009 series, this movie felt like a personal offense. The movie is a darker, 'realistic' reimagining on the series and its characters. This isn't inherently a bad thing, of course, but it comes off as following the current trend of gritty remakes instead of trying to understand its source material.

The plot is confusing whether you are familiar with the show or not. It might help to be acquainted with the characters and their backstories beforehand, but the movie doesn't even try to explain its own universe. What little there is of the story is given through large, boring
exposition with nothing visually interesting happening on the screen. Questions constantly asked throughout the film are only ever answered with a character shrugging their shoulders, then are never addressed again. All of this is topped with a near comically vague ending.

The art is a strange hybrid of CGI and 2D, which makes for a lot of blank staring and jerky movement. The animation is at its best when there's a lot of action going on screen - but considering RE's love for characters talking to one another about the scarce plot, satisfying fights are few and far between.

As far as sound goes, this is one of the only things I don't have any real qualms with. It wasn't memorable or anything, but it wasn't terrible and at least upped the hype a little at certain points in the film.

As far as the characters go in this movie, they themselves are not bad. What is bad, however, is their treatment. Jet has been turned into an extreme asshole with far worse of an attitude than we've ever seen before, and has lost his defining physical features. Francoise meanwhile has been shoehorned into a sex symbol being the series only main female character, complete with a pointless, uncomfortably long scene of her in lingerie making out with Joe. There's not much to say about the other characters, as they didn't get much screen time.

All in all, I'm giving this movie a 1 for all around poor story, poor animation, and poor characters. Perhaps watch it if you're looking for something hilariously bad and confusing, but otherwise I recommend you skip it entirely.

I don't write reviews, as I often do not need to. However the "009 Re:Cyborg" was a complete waste of my time, and anyone else's.

I'll keep it short and simple: If you're curious if this movie is any good not, the answer is "It's not". Usually I can some some merit, but this was an hour and a half I feel has been completely wasted.

The CG is well done, as expected of I.G. Productions, however the story is nonsensical that tries to use lingo it clearly doesn't know the mean of, or how to use. There are a lot of "modern" throwbacks such
as the military uniforms being digicam and the american president being black, and details like these, I wish they had used to write a story. (Not a 'better' story, but a plot in general. At all.)

There's a new fashion in the anime industries the last few years were old school manga are either adapted to anime (like Parasite and Jojo's bizarre adventure) or they are getting reboots (like Sailor moon and Hunter x hunter). Yet in Cyborg 009's case things are different. The classic manga of Ishinomori sensei has three anime adaptations and even more movies. Is like the anime industry wants to introduce to every new generation this classic story. I myself have watched the 2001 version when I was a kid and I can say in a way that I grew up with it. I recently watched
it again to remember those times and then watch this movie. Well I can say that the results didn't dissapointed me at all.

The story in this movie has a lot of changes than the anime. Actually this movie is loosely based on Ishinomori's epic. This happened because this movie had a big problem. How could it to introduce to teenagers nowadays who grew up with fast paced anime, with lots of gore and fights like Tokyo ghoul, Naruto, Bleach and many more, a story that was written in the middle of the 70's. In order to manage this the movie ditches the somehow naive story of the anime and takes the story's setting to today's world. I liked it that. Sure it didn't remind me at all the classic anime but as I said this is mostly a try to introduce the story to teenagers today. And I believe it did it very well. I had a little problem with the plot though. I would like it if it wasn't so much Americanized. But I will explain this later. Also it isn't necessary to see the anime but I would recommend it if you want to know some things about the characters.

About the animation itself I can't find words to describe it. Production IG did a stunning job. The animation is amazing and the movie doesn't loose any opportunity to show it off in almost every scene. I was captivated by it right from the first moment. I couldn't find any flow in it no matter how hard I tried. If I could rate it with mark above 10 i would gladly do it. Another thing that I liked in this movie was the sound. A first class budged movie demands a first class voice actors. Mamoru Miyano, Daisuke Ono, Toru Okawa Noriaki Sugiyama and all the other seiyuus did an excellent job capturing their characters personalities almost as good as voice actors of the 2001 anime's. Also this movie had excellent OST's and really good sound effects. For the latter you just have to listen to Ivan's voice every time he speaks.

The characters was the weakest link of this movie. Because the characters wouldn't appeal to the teenagers with their obsolete 70's animation changes were made not only in their design (which was fair I have to say) but mostly in their personalities. The movie introduced the characters like they were an X-Men rip off. Because of the already mentioned Americanization the characters were made to look like American superheroes and this way a little bit of their personalities was lost. In either way if you haven't seen any of the previews anime adaptation I don't thing you will have a big problem with this.

Summarizing, I have to say that I was really pleased with this movie. It didn't looked like the anime series at all but I don't think this was a problem. It did a fairly good job at introducing Joe and the others in the new generation. I'm really curious to see if there's gonna be another adaptation. Who knows maybe in a decade or so we will see a crossover between between the 00 cyborgs and X-men. I would like to see that.

Now before beginning a few things that I need to say. I haven't watched the original 009 series which was aired before i was even born but I have watched the 2001 remake when it aired in my country. I have forgotten most of the storyline but I do remember bits and pieces and the feeling that I had when watching it. Cyborg 009 (2001) was possibly the second anime I watched and it was absolutely stunning! at that time. My review down below is taking into consideration what I felt when I first watched the series.

When I watched the movie I was initially excited
at the way they had changed the character designs and added a touch of freshness.

For those of you who have already watched any of the previous series, NOSTALGIA IS ILL ADVISED. Yes, the characters are a bit nostalgic, yes the action is a bit nostalgic and yes, the overhaul with CG looks amazing initially BUT here are somethings you may not swallow very well. (Forgive me if they seem irate.)

One, I may not remember the 2001 series that well but I most certainly definitely absolutely remember it was lucid and simple plot that my childish brain could follow with ease. Okay, so that generation is all grown up and needs adult material, alright... BUT that does not mean you should make it into some freakin' goddamn Evangelion plot with HIS voice governing all. Yeah, yeah I know you don't give a damn about God but why use it just to give your plot some pseudo-intellectual pseudo-religious air. I mean was 009 ever this psychological?! Hell no. WTF is Freud doing in a sci-fi, battle anime which was much better without that complex mind-curdling crap.
If i want to watch psychological complexity and Freud's theories I'd much rather watch Evangelion and Ergo Proxy. They just ruined a totally fine storyline because they couldn't come with an antithesis? Man, I'm beyond words at this.

Two, the characters. Well given the short timespan, they did a fine job at introducing the characters. But they cannot be fleshed out as well as they were in the series. The sense of familiarity is reduced because the characters hardly get much time except 009 of course. The rest have to spew the stupid psychological shit in the extremely limited time they get. I'm wondering if they forgot about half of the team less than halfway through the movie. But well I liked Joe and Francoise, and their little eyecandy, so ok...

Third, the art and animation. In my view it is clearly rushed and subpar. If they think that CG can make it astounding they are so wrong. The character designs are more elaborate but not well rounded. The animation is clearly so stiff that I am thoroughly disappointed. This possibly due to overuse of CG in every aspect. Guess they didn't want much fine-tuned work on it eh? But the backgrounds and special effects are done quite well.

If you can get past all of those this movie is enjoyable enough. The action scenes are fine and the sound tracks are good. For someone like me who was a big fan of the original series, it is enjoyable even if a turnoff.